The Terrible Goodness of God Text: Joshua 8:24-29
Introduction: Judgment Begins
We live in a sentimental age, an age that has manufactured a god in its own image. This god is a kindly, avuncular deity who would never hurt a fly, much less command the destruction of a city. He is a god of niceness, a god of inclusivity, a god whose chief attribute is beinginoffensive. And this god, I must tell you, is a pathetic idol. He is not the God of the Bible. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a God of terrible holiness and perfect justice. He is good, yes, but His goodness is a consuming fire.
We come in our text to the conclusion of the battle for Ai. And it is a bloody conclusion. It is a scene of total warfare, of devotion to destruction, of a king hanged on a tree. To our modern sensibilities, this is jarring. It is offensive. And that is precisely the point. The conquest of Canaan was not a mere real estate transaction. It was a divine judgment. It was God using Israel as His scalpel to cut a cancerous tumor out of the land. The Canaanites were not innocent farmers caught in the crossfire. The Scriptures are clear about their practices: rampant idolatry, sexual depravity of the foulest sort, and even child sacrifice. God had given them centuries to repent, four hundred years as He told Abraham, but their iniquity had now reached its full measure.
What we are reading here is not an unfortunate episode that we must excuse or explain away. This is the justice of God in action. This is herem warfare. Herem means devoted to destruction, consecrated to God for utter removal. Achan learned in the previous chapter that you do not trifle with what is devoted to God. Now, the city of Ai learns that same lesson. This is not ethnic cleansing; it is the execution of a divine death sentence. And if we do not understand this, we will never understand the cross. For at the cross, we see the ultimate herem. We see the Son of God, made sin for us, devoted to destruction, bearing the full measure of God's wrath so that we, the guilty, might be spared.
The Text
Now it happened that when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field in the wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them fell by the edge of the sword until they were completely destroyed, then all Israel turned back to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. So all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000 all the people of Ai. For Joshua did not withdraw his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted to destruction all the inhabitants of Ai. Israel took only the cattle and the spoil of that city as plunder for themselves, according to the word of Yahweh which He had commanded Joshua. So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, a desolation until this day. And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening; and at sunset Joshua gave a command, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the city gate and raised over it a great heap of stones that stands to this day.
(Joshua 8:24-29 LSB)
The Unrelenting Javelin (vv. 24-26)
We begin with the completion of the battle:
"Now it happened that when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field in the wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them fell by the edge of the sword until they were completely destroyed, then all Israel turned back to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. So all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000 all the people of Ai. For Joshua did not withdraw his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted to destruction all the inhabitants of Ai." (Joshua 8:24-26)
The destruction is described as total and complete. After the ambush was sprung and the men of Ai were trapped between two Israelite forces, the slaughter was methodical. They were pursued into the wilderness and cut down. Then Israel turned back to the now defenseless city and finished the work. The text emphasizes the totality: "all the inhabitants," "all of them fell," "until they were completely destroyed." This was not a crime of passion; it was an act of obedience.
The number given is twelve thousand, "all the people of Ai." This included men and women. The modern mind recoils, but we must ask the right questions. Was God unjust? God, as the author of life, has the absolute right to take it. All life is on loan from Him. But more than that, this was a judicial act. The culture of Ai was corrupt from top to bottom. Its idolatry was a spiritual poison that God would not allow to infect His people. God had commanded this severity to prevent a greater evil: the apostasy of Israel. He was protecting future generations from the abomination of Canaanite worship.
Notice the striking image in verse 26. Joshua held out his javelin as a signal for the ambush, and he did not withdraw his hand until the judgment was complete. This is a picture of unwavering, relentless obedience. It is a posture of sustained command, reflecting the sustained will of God. Just as Moses' hands were held up for victory over the Amalekites, Joshua's javelin remains extended until the Lord's command is fulfilled. This is a rebuke to all our half-hearted, half-way obedience. When God commands, we are not to flinch or grow weary until the task is done.
Permitted Plunder and Permanent Ruin (vv. 27-28)
Next, we see a crucial distinction from the battle of Jericho.
"Israel took only the cattle and the spoil of that city as plunder for themselves, according to the word of Yahweh which He had commanded Joshua. So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, a desolation until this day." (Joshua 8:27-28 LSB)
Here, Israel is permitted to take the plunder. At Jericho, everything was devoted to God, placed under the ban. Achan's sin was taking what belonged exclusively to God's treasury. But here at Ai, God in His grace provides for His people from the spoils of their enemies. This teaches us a vital lesson about obedience. True obedience is not about following a set of abstract rules; it is about listening to the specific, spoken word of God. What was forbidden at Jericho is permitted at Ai. Why? Because God said so. Our duty is not to reason why, but to hear and obey the present command. We must not turn God's specific commands into general principles, nor ignore His specific commands because they don't fit our general principles. We walk by faith, and faith comes by hearing the Word of God.
After the city was cleared, Joshua burned it. He made it a "heap forever," a tel, a permanent ruin. This was not just military strategy; it was a theological statement. This place of rebellion against God was to be a lasting monument to the consequences of that rebellion. It was a scar on the landscape, a perpetual sermon preached in rubble, a warning visible "until this day." God's judgments are not fleeting. They have a history and a testimony. The ruins of Ai were to serve as a catechism lesson for every Israelite child who passed by: this is what happens when a people hardens its heart against Yahweh.
A Cursed King on a Cursed Tree (v. 29)
The final act of judgment is reserved for the leader of the rebellion.
"And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening; and at sunset Joshua gave a command, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the city gate and raised over it a great heap of stones that stands to this day." (Joshua 8:29 LSB)
The king, as the head of the city, bears the ultimate representative responsibility. His execution is public and symbolic. He is hanged on a tree. This was a sign of the utmost shame and degradation. According to the law in Deuteronomy, "he who is hanged is accursed of God" (Deut. 21:23). This king was not just executed; he was publicly displayed as a man under the divine curse. His fate was a visible manifestation of the curse that had fallen on his entire city.
But here we must see the shadow of a much greater reality. Joshua, whose name is Yeshua, the same as Jesus, hangs this cursed king on a tree. Centuries later, another Joshua, our Lord Jesus, would Himself be hanged on a tree. He who knew no sin became a curse for us. As Paul says in Galatians, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree'" (Gal. 3:13). The king of Ai was hanged for his own sin and rebellion. Christ, the King of kings, was hanged for our sin and rebellion. He took the ultimate herem, the ultimate devotion to destruction, in our place. He became the accursed one so that we might become the blessed ones.
Joshua's obedience to the law is precise. The body is taken down at sunset, so as not to defile the land. The curse is real, but it must be handled according to God's prescription. The king's body is then thrown at the city gate, the place of authority and judgment, and a great heap of stones is raised over it. Like the heap of stones over Achan, this is another memorial of judgment. It is a tombstone for a rebellion, a permanent marker testifying to the fact that sin has consequences and that God's justice will prevail. It stands "to this day," a silent witness.
Conclusion: Heaps of Judgment, Heaps of Grace
This passage is hard, but it is good. It shows us a God who is holy and just, a God who does not treat sin lightly. The heaps of stone over Achan and the king of Ai are memorials of judgment. They remind us that rebellion against the holy God is a terrifying and destructive thing. We must not domesticate this God. We must fear Him.
But the story of the Bible does not end with heaps of judgment. For there is another heap of stones, an empty one. After the Lord Jesus bore the curse on the tree, He was laid in a tomb, and a great stone was rolled against the entrance. And on the third day, that stone was rolled away. The empty tomb is the ultimate memorial. It is a heap of grace. It testifies that the one who became a curse for us has conquered the curse. He absorbed the full, unrelenting wrath of God against our sin, and He came out the other side alive.
The God who commanded the destruction of Ai is the same God who sent His Son to be destroyed for you. The justice that fell on the king of Ai is the same justice that fell upon Christ at Calvary. The only question is which heap of stones will be your memorial. Will you stand on your own rebellion and face a heap of judgment? Or will you, by faith, hide yourself in the greater Joshua, Jesus Christ, and stand at the empty tomb, the heap of grace that testifies to your full and free salvation? There is no third option.